We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lily Piper. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lily below.
Hi Lily, thanks for joining us today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?
Is being happy as an artist a real thing? Happiness comes in waves. I feel happy when I am in good company, or when my work is flowing. But sometimes, even when I am creating, there is a flood of negative emotions that consumes me. I am most vulnerable when I am my most prolific. I question my work and myself in those moments. I love my work, but the work itself isn’t enough to make me happy. Happiness is a funny, elusive thing.
I have had many “regular jobs.” I bussed tables for 2.5 years and have worked in hospitality, retail, and construction. It felt good to have something I knew I could depend on at the time, even if it was minimum wage. I don’t wonder what it would be like to have a “regular job”, because I have worked those jobs for much of my life. I started working when I was 14. I do consider at times, how nice it would be to work in a dependable field, but I am grateful to be painting and creating.
Lily, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I did’t come from a particularly artistic family. I was raised in Louisville, Ky by mother and Oma (dutch grandmother). I was a very imaginative child and would spend much of my time making fairy castles in the backyard or roaming the alleyways with friends causing mischief. I attended public schools and struggled a great deal until I met a heroic teacher named Mary Holden. This was the first person who truly helped to nurture the young artist in me.
I went to arts magnet middle and high schools in Louisville and attended pre-college programs during the summers at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and The School of Visual Arts in New York City. I chose to move to New York and continue studying at SVA before landing in Los Angeles.
I consider myself a multi-disciplinarian, with a focus on oil painting. I create works that may evoke a feeling of dreaminess or nostalgia. I tend to blur the faces and leave some mystery or keep one longing for more information. I am very moved by old photographs and our hopeless obsession with immortality. I struggle with my own memory and “the fundamental impermanence of all things” and this is a throughline in my work.
Sometimes I collect dead bees and use their wings and legs to make pollinator poems. That sounds mad… and maybe it is, but you just have to see it to get it.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
My resilience has been tested from a young age. I grew up in a complicated household. My father was a victim of the opioid epidemic and became a professional felon. My mother worked hard but life was difficult to put it mildly. The entire journey from then to now has been a series of hurdles and heartbreaks, but each betrayal becomes a blessing and every failing makes the little successes that much sweeter.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding moments are when I inspire a young mind, or any mind for that matter, but particularly children. I have adored working in my gallerist’s residency studio with her 4-year-old son. Watching his focus and listening to the incredible descriptions he comes up with for his creations absolutely blows my mind.
I know I am doing something right when someone looks at a piece and feels moved or intimately connected.
I create for me, and because I must, and I know no other way of being, but it’s such a beautiful thing to bond with others through the work.
Contact Info:
- Website: lilypiperfaye.com
- Instagram: @lilypiperfaye / @lilypiperartist
Image Credits
Chris Singer, Jojo Korsh (BFA)